African Americans split on death penalty, polls show / Prominence of opponents may skew public's perception

Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, January 14, 2006

Photo: Michael Maloney

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Outside the San Quentin gates, the Reverend Jesse Jackson signals to a heckler to be quiet after visiting Stanley Williams for the 2nd time.
The vigil outside the gates to San Quentin Prison where Stanley "Tookie" Williams was to be executed shortly after midnight, Tuesday morning December 13, 2005. Pro and anti death penalty advocates were on hand to voice and demonstrate their views.
Williams, once the leader of the Crypts gang was convicted and sentenced to death for 4 murders. The governor refused clemency for Williams Monday.
Event in San Quentin, CA
Photo by Michael Maloney / The Chronicle less

Outside the San Quentin gates, the Reverend Jesse Jackson signals to a heckler to be quiet after visiting Stanley Williams for the 2nd time.
The vigil outside the gates to San Quentin Prison where Stanley ... more

Photo: Michael Maloney

African Americans split on death penalty, polls show / Prominence of opponents may skew public's perception

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The high-profile African American leaders who rallied in support of Stanley Tookie Williams gave the impression the death penalty issue is black and white.

In fact, national polls show African Americans split evenly on capital punishment. Though whites favor the death penalty 3 to 1, nearly 50 percent of blacks favor execution for convicted murderers regardless of race.

Author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson said African Americans' opposition to capital punishment is a "myth," evident from the amount of mail he received from black readers after he wrote in support of clemency for Williams.

"I got a number of letters from African Americans who said that those who perpetrate crime must be dealt with," said Hutchinson, a black man who has also written in opposition to Clarence Ray Allen's upcoming execution. "Many blacks are conservative when it comes to law and order.

"If you went into a room, turned off the lights and spoke about capital punishment, you wouldn't know the race of the person you were speaking to."

The same black politicians, church leaders and celebrities who supported Williams have not rallied in support of Allen, a man who says he is of Native American descent and who is set to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

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The difference, according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, is that Williams not only worked to retract his violent legacy, but may have been a victim of systemic racism.

Jackson said in a recent phone interview that he is philosophically opposed to the death penalty in all cases but felt compelled to denounce the system that executed Williams.

"Sirhan Sirhan and Charlie Manson are still alive, but Tookie is dead," Jackson said. "There are undeniable facts that race plays a part in who lives and who dies."

On the other side are African Americans who have every confidence in the justice system and are upset by the assumption that they would be lenient.

Billy Jeffrey, a 56-year-old San Francisco building inspector, for example, said high-profile African Americans who oppose capital punishment perpetuate the misconception that most blacks feel the way they do.

"The message they put out is absolutely wrong," said Jeffrey, who is black. "They tell you one thing about the community, but the rank and file are not like that."

He said silence on the part of African Americans who support capital punishment contributes to the misunderstanding.

"I have friends on both sides of the fence," Jeffrey said. "But those who support it are trying to be politically correct. So they don't say much about it."

Lawanda Hawkins, a Los Angeles member of Crime Victims United of America, said she was shocked by the backing Williams received from church leaders and entertainers and said it will lead them to "lose points" in the black community.

"We were appalled by these so-called black leaders," Hawkins said. "They were a smack in the face to African Americans. We have never been sympathetic to murderers.

"The death penalty is the only solution when you get people that have killed others," she added. "It is the only thing we have left. I am in support of it."

An average of responses in General Social Survey polls conducted between 1972 and 2004 by the National Opinion Research Center shows that 49.4 percent of African Americans favor the death penalty -- compared to 77.5 percent of whites. A 2004 Gallup poll showed similar numbers.

Many African Americans who oppose capital punishment believe the criminal justice system is corrupt; they don't necessarily cite moral grounds for their opposition. Like Jackson, they point to the disproportionate number of blacks on Death Row.

Last year, 648 people were on Death Row in California, 233 of them African American, according to a Santa Clara Law Review study. That is, blacks make up 36 percent of people on Death Row, while only 6.7 percent of Californians are black.

"I am against capital punishment because of the inequity in the way it is administered," said Lita Herron of Mothers on the March, a primarily African American support group for victims of gang violence. "There are some people who have been executed and found innocent, which makes it a flawed situation."

Herron said that her group is split about 50-50 on capital punishment and that when gang violence increased in the 1990s, support for the death penalty rose.

The General Social Survey found among a small sample in 2004 that support for capital punishment fell as low as 42 percent from as high as 57 percent in 1994.

Kevin L. Martin, who belongs to Project 21, a conservative African American political group with members nationwide, said he is an avid supporter of the death penalty and believes that 99.9 percent of the people in prison are guilty.

He said the idea that blacks rarely support capital punishment results from the tendency of the public to see outspoken black liberals as leaders, while conservatives rarely win that title.

"The perception of black opposition is predicated by these black liberals, who hold these murderers on a pedestal and claim racism is behind the convictions," Martin said. "They don't speak for me or my community."